Sunday, May 21, 2017

"It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to
have them and not deserve them."

-- Mark Twain

It seems like only yesterday that Nicklas Backstrom was a
19-year old rookie lacing up his skates to face the Atlanta Thrashers in his
first NHL game, but when he laced up his skates to face the Pittsburgh Penguins
to open the 2016-2017 season he was embarking on his tenth NHL season, becoming
just the 16th player in team history to play ten or more seasons for
the Washington Capitals.By the time the
regular season was over, Backstrom stood in ninth place in games played for the
franchise (734).

In some ways, the 2016-2017 season was among his best.His 23 goals was the second-highest total of
his career, topped only by the 33 he posted in 2009-2010.He had 63 assists, the third-highest total of
his career and most since the 2009-2010 season.Backstrom finished with 86 points, the second-highest total of his
career (101 in 2009-2010).

Backstrom, who has been a model of consistency over his
career, assembled his 2016-2017 season in what amounted to two distinct
parts.He started his season in good,
but unspectacular fashion, going 10-24-34, plus-8 over his first 40 games.But, starting with a four-point game against
Pittsburgh in his 41st game of the season, he raised is production,
a case of kicking his playmaking into high gear.He had 13 goals over those last 42 games, but
he recorded 39 assists.

The 52 points Backstrom recorded over those 42 games
starting with that four-point game on January 11th tied Connor
McDavid for most in the league over that span to close the season, and his 39
assists led the league outright.He also
led the league in power play points over that period with 21.

The odd part about Backstrom’s year in possession numbers
was the extent he dragged down, or perhaps was dragged down, by his most
frequent linemates, Alex Ovechkin and T.J. Oshie, at 5-on-5.As a group, that trio had a 50.25 Corsi-for
at 5-on-5, ninth-best of 13 forward combinations skating at least 50 5-on-5
minutes together this season for the Caps (numbers from Corsica.hockey).Breaking that down, Backstrom had better individual numbers when apart from either Ovechkin or Oshie, and conversely,
Ovechkin and Oshie had better numbers when apart from Backstrom (numbers from
stats.hockeyanalysis.com).

Fearless’ Take… How many players in the league have more
50-assist seasons than Nicklas Backstrom since hecame into the league in 2007-2008?If you answered “none,” you win a prize.This was his seventh such season in his
ten-year career, tying him with Ryan Getzlaf for the most 50-assist seasons in
the last ten years.Topping 60 assists
this season, he also tied Henrik Sedin and Joe Thornton for the most 60-plus
assist seasons in that span of time (five apiece).This season, Backstrom was second in
multi-assist games (15) to Connor McDavid (19), giving him 125 multi-assist
games in his career, tied for second (with Sidney Crosby), behind only Henrik
Sedin (132) over the last ten seasons.In the 15 games this season in which Backstrom recorded two or more
assists, the Caps were 14-0-1.

Cheerless’ Take… Time on ice looked weird for Backstrom this
season.He skated just 12 games with 20
or more minutes of ice time this season, and the Caps were 4-5-3 in those
games.They were 5-1-0 when he skated
less than 16 minutes.Not to say less of
Backstrom is more (that might reflect the Caps not needing him out there to
make up deficits), but it just looks strange.Here is another one, though.Losing faceoffs seemed to matter, if only as a coincidence, but not in
the way one might have thought.The Caps
were 28-6-4 in games in which he was under 50 percent on draws, 27-13-4 in
games where he was 50 percent or better.

Odd Backstrom Fact… With ten games of three or more points
this season, Nicklas Backstrom became the second Capital in franchise history
to record at least ten three-point games in a single season more than once.He had 13 such games in the 2009-2010
season.Alex Ovechkin leads the
franchise with three such seasons.Dale
Hunter (12 in 1991-1992), Michal Pivonka (10 in 1991-1992), and Mike Ridley (10
in 1992-1993) are the others (information from hockey-reference.com).

Game to remember… November 16th vs. Pittsburgh

In what might have been the team’s most satisfying regular
season game of the season, a 7-1 win over the Penguins, Backstrom had what might have been his best
game of the campaign.It was certainly his most
productive one.Backstrom did not record
a point on the Caps’ first goal of their November 16th contest
against the Penguins, Jay Beagle assisting on a T.J. Oshie goal 7:32 into the
game.But Backstrom was all over the
score sheet thereafter.He scored a goal
of his own late in the first period, taking a feed from Oshie at the red line,
skating into the Pens’ zone and wristing a shot under the left arm of goalie
Matt Murray.Then, he recorded an assist
on an Oshie power play goal with just 7.9 seconds left in the first
period.He added assists on goals by
Dmitry Orlov and Justin Williams early in the second and third periods,
respectively.And after the Penguins
ruined goalie Braden Holtby’s shutout with less than four minutes to go in the
contest, Backstrom added his second goal on a play that seemed to distinguish
his 2016-2017 season from seasons before it.Taking a long lead pass from Nate Schmidt just outside the Penguin blue
line, he skated in with Marcus Johansson on his left.In games and years past, he might have opened
up and tried to feather a pass to Johansson for a shot.On this occasion, he called his own number
and snapped a shot past the glove of relief netminder Marc-Andre Fleury to cap
a 7-1 win.It was the fifth time in his
career Backstrom recorded five or more points in a game, moving into second place
in franchise history, one behind Peter Bondra.He was one of only five players in the league to score five or more
points in a game in the 2016-2017 season.

Game to forget… December 27th vs. New York
Islanders

When a player known for his two-way play has a bad game both
ways, it’s a game to forget.Such was
the case in Brooklyn against the New York Islanders when Backstrom and the Caps
seemed to be in an egg nog coma in their first game after Christmas.The Islanders seemed on step ahead of the
Caps – literally – throughout.New York
scored the first goal of the game eight minutes in, only to have the Caps tie
the game five minutes later.It was a
pattern repeated once more, and then the Islanders took a lead they would not
relinquish early in the third period, Backstrom being on ice for each of the
three Islander goals.He was not on the
ice for what would be the game-winning goal, an Anders Lee breakaway of a Caps
turnover.But Backstrom was a
minus-3for the game (one of two such
games he had for the season), and he managed only a pair of shot attempts.In more than five minutes of power play ice
time he did not manage to quarterback the Caps to a goal, and Washington
dropped a 4-3 decision.

Postseason:13 games,
6-7-13, even, 55.15 5-on-5 CF%

It is hard what to make of Nicklas Backstrom’s
postseason.As of May 20th,
he remained one of just seven players appearing in at least ten postseason
games who averaged at least one point per game. His possession numbers, like those of the
team in general, were solid, both individually (55.15 CF% at 5-on-5) and in
combination (with Ovechkin and Oshie, a 56.73 CF% at 5-on-5; numbers from
Corsica.hockey).He led the team in goal
scoring (six) and points overall (13).He was remarkably efficient as a shooter, converting six of the 26 shots
he took in 13 games (23.1 percent), third among the 85 players in the
postseason to date having recorded at least 20 shots on goal.

On the other hand, he went without a point in three of the
seven games in the second round loss to the Penguins, all three of those games ending
in losses, including the series-deciding Game 7.It was part of a disturbing pattern with
Backstrom.In 20 games facing
elimination in his career, Backstrom is 4-11-15, plus-11.That’s not bad.But in 10 Games 7 in his career he is 1-2-3,
plus-2.The Caps are 3-7 in those ten
games.For Backstrom, the postseason was
very much an uneven affair, and it gives greater weight to his overall grade
than it might have in previous seasons (as will be true of all of the Capitals when
evaluating their respective seasons).

“This wasn’t the reason the Caps failed to advance, but one
does wonder what one timely goal might have meant.When one says ‘there is enough blame to go
around’ with respect to the Caps’ second round loss, it doesn’t jump past
Backstrom to the next player, either.”

It applies once more.It is hard to say of a player who has been as consistent and as
consistently productive as Nicklas Backstrom that he has come up short in the
biggest games, but it is hard to avoid that conclusion.And the notion of blame not skipping him to
the next player seems to have particular relevance and urgency here, given the
outsized blame placed on Alex Ovechkin for the Caps’ postseason woes.For both Backstrom and Ovechkin, the clock is
ticking louder with respect to time they have left in their careers to shake
off the demons that appear in the spring.In Backstrom’s case, doing that is likely going to mean raising his game
in a season’s ultimate game to a level he has not been able to find.It is the cloud that hangs over his 2016-2017
season.

WE INTERRUPT OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAMMING

The Washington Capitals ended the 2016-2017 as one of 12 franchises in the NHL never to win a Stanley Cup. Of that group, only the St. Louis Blues (48 seasons), Buffalo Sabres (45 seasons), and Vancouver Canucks (45 seasons) have gone longer never having won a Cup than the Capitals (41 seasons). Six teams came into the league after the Capitals entered the league in 1974-1975 and have won Stanley Cups: Colorado Rockies/New Jersey Devils (1976-1977), Edmonton Oilers (1979-1980), Quebec Nordiques/Colorado Avalanche (1979-1980), Hartford Whalers/Carolina Hurricanes (1979-1980), Tampa Bay Lightning (1992-1993), and the Anaheim Ducks (1993-1994).

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